DuPage County Board approves mosque

DuPage County Board approves mosque

Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune

Jamshid Jahedi, a structural engineer, left, MECCA President Abdulgany Hamadeh, center, and MECCA board member Bassam Osman, right, after DuPage County voted 13-5 to approve a conditional use permit for a mosque in Willowbrook.

Jamshid Jahedi, a structural engineer, left, MECCA President Abdulgany Hamadeh, center, and MECCA board member Bassam Osman, right, after DuPage County voted 13-5 to approve a conditional use permit for a mosque in Willowbrook. (Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune)

The DuPage County Board today voted in favor of a group’s request to build a mosque in an unincorporated area near Willowbrook.

The vote was 13-5. It came after another proposal to send the matter back to the Zoning Board was rejected.

The board’s approval followed months of protest from some residents who said they were concerned that the character of their rural area would dramatically change with the construction of the Muslim Educational Cultural Center of America, or MECCA.

Meanwhile, MECCA members and local religious leaders said they were pleased with the decision, saying they look forward to moving out of their existing site, a cramped commercial office space near a Kmart.

"We left it to Allah and we trust what he does," said Lubna Farooq, a board member of MECCA.